


Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

by Dissenter



Series: Revisionist history, the Vongola way [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, But not good enough, Chaos, Collateral Damage, Crack, Dino isn't sure what he did to deserve this, Hayato goes back in time to fixit, Hayato has no chill, Hayato is disturbing, He succeeds, Kid Fic, Kidnapping, Mad Science, Mukuro is a drama queen, Mukuro respects that, On the Run, Princess Persephone (Original Van Character), Reborn is a shit stirring old person in a very good disguise, Reborn is very good at tracking people, Road Trip, disaster looking for a place to happen, except Spanner he has all the chill, he breaks a lot of other stuff in the process, no-one has any chill, no-one has any sense of direction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:39:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12884148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter
Summary: Tsuna is dead. Hayato decides that is Not Acceptable. And proceeds to break space time to fix it. He regrets nothing.Except for the fact that he arrives back in Italy, half a world away from his Sky. He then embarks on the epic mafia road trip from hell to find his Sky, along with three escaped lab experiments, one kidnapped mafia heir, one runaway schoolkid on a field trip to Paris, and a dog called Spot.Or the one where Hayato is incredibly Extra about everything, and no-one but Dino notices.





	1. They called me MAD

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I was thinking about Where is the power, and how much fun I had sending Hibari back in time. Then I started thinking how much fun it would be sending Hayato back in time. Then this was born.

Tsuna was dead. People were trying to talk to him but Hayato couldn’t hear them past the roaring in his ears. Tsuna was dead. His Sky was dead, and that was Not Acceptable. In fact it topped the very very long list of things that were Not Acceptable, that had been happening lately. He refused to accept this.

People had dragged him away from the body, dragged him back to base, tried to talk him into pulling himself together, tried to make him move on. He didn’t _want_ to move on. “What’s done is done” they said, “Tsuna would have wanted you to live” they said, “you can’t change the past” they said. Well watch him.

He wasn’t going to kill himself. If they were right about one thing it was that his Juudaime would have wanted him to live, but he _refused_ to accept that his Sky was dead. He was a genius, the Vongola Storm, his Sky’s right hand, he had access to five different dying will flames, one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, and the Vongola rings. He _knew_ time travel was possible. The solution was right within his grasp.

By the time they’d managed to break down the door to the lab it was too late. They burst in just in time to see him hit the button.

…

He opened his eyes to a dirty alleyway with Italian graffiti on the wall, the kind of place he’d so often slept when he was younger, he looked down at his hands, smaller, scarred but not nearly to the same extent that they once had been/would be. It had worked. He grinned, with a slight edge of madness. It had worked, Tsuna was alive. His Sky was alive and he was a kid, and the world wasn’t ending, and _Tsuna was alive._ His mind kept circling back to that thought, bright and beautiful. They’d called him mad, but he was _right,_ and now Tsuna was alive, everyone was alive, and he could _fix_ everything.

First things first though. He needed to find his Sky.

…

In hindsight maybe he should have thought more carefully about when to send himself back to. Sending himself back as far as possible was all very well in theory, but in practice it meant that he was now a seven year old Italian street kid, who had to, somehow, get halfway across the world to Japan to find his Sky, without getting caught and sent back to his father.

That might be a slight problem.

He checked himself for resources. Explosives, check, not as many as he’d like but he could use Cloud flames to duplicate them, passport, check, he knew he’d taken it with him when he left home but it was always good to make sure, money, well that might also be a slight problem.

Ok, so break down the problem…

Aim: go to Japan, find his Sky, bond with his Sky.

Obstacles: money- lack of, age 7yrs- too young to travel without supervision, Seal- in the way of bonding and generally messing with his Sky.

Resources: Flames x5, future knowledge 18yrs, intelligence, explosives, age 7yrs- young enough to be conveniently underestimated.

He ran his mind through possible solutions, he could mug someone or kill someone to solve the money issue, but Juudaime probably wouldn’t like that and that would still leave him with the age issue and the seal to deal with. The seal was going to be a problem, but it wasn’t an immediate one so he set it aside for the moment. That left the age and money issues, if he had Mist flames none of that would be a problem, unfortunately, Mist flames were not one of the five he had access to.

Solutions solutions. He kept circling back to the Mist flames. They would be the easiest solution for a lot of his problems, and would probably be even more useful in the future. So he needed Mist flames, but he didn’t have Mist flames, solution, get a Mist flame user.

And thanks to his future knowledge he knew just where to find one.

…

The resources he had might not be ideal for sneaking onto a plane to Japan, but they were perfect for destroying an unsuspecting Estraneo lab. The scientists saw a skinny looking seven year old child and did _not_ expect a raging, war hardened, Vongola Storm guardian. They never knew what hit them.

With all the scientists dead he was able to wander into their labs at his leisure, grab anything that looked useful, and stick it in a bag. Juudaime probably wouldn’t mind, they were evil after all, they had it coming.

He found Mukuro in the cells, and he was just as creepy as a kid as he had been as an adult. Which was… actually kind of impressive. Hayato could respect that.

“Kufufu, what’s going on here?” He snickered from the lab table he was strapped down to. Hayato was in no mood to play mind games.

“I’m rescuing you.” Mukuro’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Why?”

“I need to get to Japan. To do that I need a Mist to fuck with the border control. Are you in?” Mukuro actually took a moment to think about it, the fucker. Anyone else would have jumped at the chance to escape the evil mad science laboratory, but not this weirdo, no he wanted to negotiate terms.

“That depends” he mused, “Why are you going to Japan?”

“I want my Sky back.” Hayato answered, and that was all the detail Mukuro was getting for now, if there was one person in the world who did not need more knowledge of the future than absolutely necessary it was Mukuro. The Mist thought about it for a moment, and appeared to accept that as a reasonable justification.

“Alright then, get me and my friends out, and we’ll go with you to Japan.” Fuck, Hayato had forgotten about the minions. Still, they might be useful, and it’s not like he could leave them behind. Technically they were famiglia even if they didn’t know it yet.

…

“So how are we getting to Japan then oh wise leader?” Hayato was not regretting getting Mukuro out of the Estraneo labs, he’d already diverted two policemen and one drunken Mafioso, he was _useful._ He was just also incredibly annoying.

“Shut up I’m trying to think.” He actually was. Because he might not have a Sky’s hyper intuition, but he knew that if he wanted to solve the seal problem he would be better off thinking it through _before_ he left Italy, any solution would most likely be easiest to access at the hub of criminal Flame usage.

Ok so the problem was the seal, and as far as he knew there were two ways to break it. Dying will bullets, or Sky flames. Dying will bullets were strictly controlled, getting them would not be easy and would probably involve fighting an arcobaleno. Not an ideal scenario. On the other hand Skies didn’t exactly grow on trees, and fighting them was no picnic either.

Although, there was one option. Someone he knew was both a Sky, and mostly helpless at this age, someone whose mansion he knew the layout of, someone who would probably find being kidnapped mildly entertaining if his adult personality was anything to go by. Yes, that was the answer.

“Ken, Chikusa, go get us some kind of car. We’re going to need to leave town in a hurry after this. Mukuro, you’re with me.” He was surprised by how quickly they obeyed him, but then, they had agreed to work with him.

“Oh, and where are we going, oh fearless leader?” Hayato just grinned at him.

“We’re going to go and kidnap the Cavallone heir.”

“Kufufu, sounds fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I considered who would be the most motivated/likely to succeed in travelling back in time if Tsuna died, and of course the answer is Hayato. Then I started to think what would be the first thing Hayato did after travelling back in time, which is also obvious Find Tsuna.  
> But there's a problem, chibi Hayato is in Italy, a long way away from his Sky with no simple means of getting to Japan. The obvious solution Road Trip.  
> And of course road trips are a team exercise and Hayato needs someone to get him past authorities without exploding them all, and who else was in Italy at the time. And thus Mukuro and his minions came along.  
> The world trembles.


	2. Kidnapping, murder, dangerous driving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hayato and Mukuro commit kidnapping, Ken and Chikusa commit car theft, and they should probably leave Italy before anyone catches on to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gang acquires a Van, a Dino, and a number of enemies. Everything is under control.

Dino Cavallone was, not quite how Hayato remembered him. The Dino he’d known had been clumsy yes, when his men weren’t around, but there had also been a lean strength to him, a resting power that anyone who knew danger could see for what it was. But then, that was Dino Cavallone in his twenties, after years of Reborn’s training and mafia life. This was Dino at twelve years old, clumsy, and unfit, and deeply insecure. He wasn’t fat exactly, you couldn’t even really call him pudgy, but there was a softness to him, to his body and his face, that training and combat and stress had replaced with muscle and tension in his later years.

It wasn’t unexpected, Hayato had known, academically, that pre-Reborn Dino, was kind of a wimp, but still, it was disconcerting to see. Hayato had never known him like this.

Infiltrating had been… probably considerably easier than it should have been. Really what was Mafia security coming to these days, that two random kids could just sneak in and abduct the heir to a major famiglia. Although, to be fair, they were maybe at a slight disadvantage. Not only was Hayato actually an extremely skilled adult flame user who knew the layout of their base, but even at the age of seven Mukuro was a truly terrifying Mist. He could probably have managed the whole mission by himself if necessary, although probably there would have been somewhat more collateral damage involved. As it was they’d managed to get all the way to the heir’s rooms without setting off any alarms at all. Take that Baseball Idiot, he could totally do stealth if he wanted to.

Dino’s reaction to waking up to find Hayato and Mukuro looming over his bedside in what he could, in retrospect admit was probably a fairly intimidating manner, was to go “Eep.” It was at least quieter than Tsuna’s usual high pitched “Hiieee”, but Hayato saw no point in tempting fate and hit him with a quick blast of Rain flames before he could try and raise the alarms. Mukuro actually looked quite disappointed at that, Hayato wasn’t sure if it was because he was looking forward to a fight, or because he’d wanted more time to torment Dino. It didn’t really matter which, Hayato suspected there would be plenty of opportunity for both before this journey was over.

Escaping the compound with a limp Dino hanging over his shoulder had been harder than it might sound. Dino might only be twelve at this point, but Hayato was seven, and considerably less well nourished. In the end he gave in and used Cloud flames to boost his strength as they made their way out. It didn’t help that Mukuro kept on pointing out that he could have just stuck Dino in an illusion and had him walk out under his own power. There were _reasons_ Hayato chose to do it this way, illusions were iffy on Skies, and besides he wasn’t particularly keen to take a chance that Dino’s clumsiness _wouldn’t_ cause some kind of loud and destructive crash and bring the house guards running. It was nothing to do with him not having thought of that idea first.

…

The car… wasn’t all that Hayato had hoped for. He’d hoped for something classy, and discreet, and possibly with a souped up engine for fast getaways. Unfortunately he’d failed to be specific, so Ken and Chikusa had turned up in a beaten up ford transit that made alarming noises when travelling faster than sixty, fitted down fewer than half the streets in most major Italian cities, and had once been painted rainbow. Apparently it had used to belong to a decorating company, certainly it still smelt strongly of paint stripper and plaster. Hayato was not pleased, but given Dino was still slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and the Cavollone guards could notice his absence at any moment, he really wasn’t in a position to complain about the abomination.

Mukuro adored the horrible machine. He named it Princess Persephone. Hayato had a horrible feeling they wouldn’t be ditching it any time soon.

…

Dino had been awake for a few hours, and so far the only thing he’d said was eep. Admittedly, Ken’s driving style was a bit… aggressive, but they were in Italy, Aggressive driving was practically the national sport, it was certainly no reason for Dino to be cowering in the footwell trying very hard to pretend he wasn’t there. Although, thinking about it, had they actually told him _why_ they were kidnapping him? Maybe he thought they were planning to murder him or something. Mukuro’s murder smile probably wasn’t helping with that impression to be honest.

Hayato, wasn’t a particularly comforting person, if he was brutally honest with himself, but he decided he’d probably better try and reassure the mini horse before he had some kind of heart attack.

“Relax, we’re not going to eat you.” He tried, Dino cracked open one eyelid sceptically. “No really, we don’t want to hurt you, we just need you to do a little job for us and then you can go home and forget this ever happened.”

“Because that’s not sinister at all.” Huh, mini Cavallone had a smart mouth, who knew? Still at least he was talking now, with actual words even. He also looked less like he was going to start hyperventilating, so, progress. Of course then Mukuro had to open his mouth.

“Kufufu, this experience will expand your horizons.” And Dino was back to being terrified. On the one hand Hayato could understand why, Mukuro was a very disturbing person, but really, he hadn’t even killed anyone yet in this timeline, Hayato on the other hand had killed at least thirty people in the raid on the Estraneo alone, weren’t Skies meant to be able to pick up on that kind of thing.

“I don’t want my horizons expanded. I just want to go home.” He whined, and Hayato felt a sudden sympathy for Reborn’s tendency to shoot complaining students.

“Well tough. We’re going to Japan, and you’re coming with us. When we get there you’ll do a little favour for us, and then you can go home. So sit up on the seat, pull yourself together, and stop whining or Mukuro here will convince you you’re a my little pony for the duration of the trip.”

“Kufufu what an interesting idea oh great and fearless leader.” Hayato felt a _little_ bad for giving the crazy Mist _ideas,_ but, well, at least it worked, Dino stopped complaining, even if he did look a little like a kicked puppy. He’d get over it, they just needed to give it a few days for the Stockholm syndrome to set in, then he’d be fine.

Now all they needed to do was put some distance between them and the inevitable pursuit. Which was actually going better than expected. The van might be a mobile disaster, but Ken was a very fast, very _aggressive_ driver, who seemed to instinctively know _exactly_ how far he could push it. When they robbed a bank, he was definitely nominating Ken as getaway driver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, the gang leave Italy, the gang get lost, Mukuro and Hayato argue over each others map reading skills, and we get some of Dino's pov.


	3. The long way round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dino is kidnapped. Dino fails to successfully implement his "how to deal with being abducted training", nobody knows how to read a map, and the Van breaks down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Van acquires a new paintjob, Dino develops Stockholm Syndrome, and they are definitely headed the wrong way, but no-one wants to be the first to admit it.

Technically Dino did know what to do if he got kidnapped. He was a mafia heir after all, kidnapping was a known risk. He’d been given _lessons,_ he’d even paid attention to them, he might be useless, but he did have _some_ sense of self preservation. The trouble was, that none of his training had covered _anything_ like this. From the moment the Scary One and the Creepy One had just _appeared_ standing over his bed like something out of a horror movie, nothing had made any sense.

He should have screamed at that point really, but, honestly he’d kind of assumed it was just a nightmare, and by the time he’d realised it was all too horrifyingly real they’d hit him with enough Rain Flames to down a horse, and he was out. (Step one: resist capture, the best opportunity to escape is before they have you in a location of their choosing.) In any case, first step failed, and the situation just kept getting more surreal.

For starters his kidnappers were actually younger than he was. They were little kids, they looked about seven, they _should_ have been cute. He might be more humiliated by that if he weren’t too busy being terrified. And he was _right_ to be terrified he knew that. They might be young but everything from his Sky intuition to the primitive mouselike primate part of his brain was _screaming_ that these kids were dangerous. If they were cute it was in the way of baby sharks, or newly hatched pit vipers, small but with far too many teeth for comfort.

Training said that step two was to observe, observe your kidnappers, their physical condition, state of mind, how dangerous they are. Well the answers to that were both supremely unhelpful and not in the least bit reassuring. They were crazy, dangerous and crazy, which was never a good combination, and the sheer force of Flame he could feel from them was more than enough to compensate for their poor physical condition. This was _bad._

The worst thing was, he still didn’t know what they _wanted._ (Step three: ascertain your kidnapper’s goals). He wasn’t even entirely sure _they_ knew what they wanted, and that was its own new category of terror.

Well, no that wasn’t entirely true, the Scary One probably knew at least. He seemed to be in charge, and was apparently behind the decision to kidnap Dino, so presumably he had something in mind. He seemed to be operating on some kind of internal logic. Dino didn’t think he was the type to do something for shits and giggles.

Now the Creepy One, that was another story, he would totally have kidnapped Dino for shits and giggles, but the Creepy One wasn’t in charge. Dino knew that because when the Scary One told him to go and deal with the policeman, he’d done it without even arguing. (Step three: analyse the social dynamics of your captors, identify their leader, along with any weaknesses in the hierarchy/anyone that could be subverted).

As a Sky, Dino had been taught how to attack the social structure of kidnappers. It was a proven tactic, especially with unbonded Flame active captors. More than one young Sky had escaped a bad situation by suborning or undermining attackers. But he found himself deeply reluctant to try that here. For one thing if he did succeed in undermining the Scary One’s authority it would likely only leave the Creepy One in charge and that would probably make things _worse._ For another, the Scary One wasn’t really unbonded, Dino could sense the ragged edge to his flames that marked a broken Sky bond, and he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t be able to tell if Dino tried to influence him.

And that more than anything was what made the Scary One so Scary. Because the death of a Sky _did things_ to the heads of Flame Actives, bad things, and the stronger they were the worse it was. Scary was very, very strong, and with more than one Flame. He’d used Rain to knock Dino out, but he also had Storm and Cloud strong enough to make Dino’s breath catch in his chest, and Dino wasn’t counting on that being all of it. There was no _way_ he was entirely sane. Maybe that was why the Creepy One liked him so much. Creepy was a Mist after all, and everyone knew Mists were crazy by default.

Still that brought him to Step four: co-operate and don’t provoke the kidnappers. He seemed to be doing ok at that at least. If only because the Creepy One found him amusing, the Scary One wanted him for a reason, and none of them considered him any kind of threat. He suspected he’d get a similar reaction whether he cooperated or not. He really wished he wasn’t too intimidated to be insulted by that.

Step five: keep your dignity, don’t grovel, beg, or otherwise embarrass yourself, it only makes you look like a target. Well that ship sailed. Even at the best of times Dino wouldn’t consider himself especially dignified, and given that he’d spent at least an hour after waking up curled up in a ball whimpering, and generally looking like a kicked puppy, he had probably left a certain impression on his captors. In his defence though, he challenged _anyone_ to wake up to Creepy and his creepy smile, and his creepy eye, two inches from their face and _not_ have some kind of panic attack. At least he hadn’t been sick all over himself, and with the way the Loud One was driving, that had been a distinct possibility.

The Scary One had tried to cheer him up by saying they weren’t going to eat him. It wasn’t nearly as reassuring as he’d probably intended, but Dino appreciated the attempt. It seemed that at least they didn’t _want_ him terrified, so that was probably a good thing.

Scary Spice elaborated. They wanted him to do a job, and that actually was kind of reassuring. It meant they actually had a use for him, which meant they probably weren’t going to kill him yet. Things were looking up. Wow Dino’s standards had fallen so low so quickly. Mouthing off to his captors probably hadn’t been the smartest move he could make, but it did at least net him the information that they were going to Japan. He had no idea _why_ they were going to Japan of all places, but Scary Spice looked pretty determined, and Creepy Spice looked amused, and the other two appeared to be minions and therefore didn’t argue, so Japan it was. It wasn’t like Dino’s opinion counted for anything.

He wondered how long it would take to get there.

…

A long time, apparently. Given that apparently none of his terrifyingly skilled kidnappers could read a map. They’d got out of Italy, eventually. Presumably through sheer luck, from what Dino could see. It was amazing how the same people could be both utterly terrifying, and hilariously pathetic. They’d ended up stuck in the mud at the wrong end of no less than six countryside dirt tracks, had zigzagged their way wildly from one coast of the country to the other and back again, and on one memorable occasion had ended up in the middle of a river with Scary Spice or Hayato, as he insisted his name was, using Lightning Flames to waterproof the van until they could float it to the other side. Creepy _still_ insisted it had been a ford, and the water level must have just been higher than usual due to heavy rainfall. Considering the weather in the week leading up to the incident Dino had his doubts, and judging by the long suffering look on Quiet Spice’s face he felt the same way.

Still somehow they had made it out of Italy. Creepy Spice, whose real name was apparently Mukuro, had done… something Dino didn’t want to know what, to the border guards heads to let them through and then forget about them. Of course immediately after crossing the border they managed to make yet another wrong turn. Dino knew this because for the last six nights or so sunset had been in the wrong direction for them to be headed for Japan. Dino was no genius at geography but even he knew that if you were driving _towards_ the sunset you were probably going west.

His captors, poor geography skills aside were not stupid. He was sure they knew that as well. They were just stubborn, and unwilling to admit they may have made a wrong turn, or two, or three. By this point all of them except Chikusa, aka Quiet Spice were equally responsible, and none of them was prepared to back down. Not that Dino was going to say anything. Chikusa definitely had the right idea. He’d taken one look at the vicious bickering over map orientations, and whether or not a particular dirt trail was actually marked on the map, decided it wasn’t worth it and gone to sleep with his coat over his head. He was _definitely_ a Rain, brilliant at making everything someone else’s problem.

The maps kept suffering unfortunate accidents, resulting in many, many stops at petrol stations to get new ones. The frequent stops at least meant they weren’t likely to run out of food any time soon. Loud Spice, Ken, always took the opportunity to stock up on snacks, and there was enough that none of them was likely to go hungry. Suffer early onset diabetes maybe, or some kind of horrible arterial disease, but not starvation. Dino wondered morbidly if there was an actual upper limit to the length of time people could survive on chocolate, crisps, and biscuits, with the occasional cheese sandwich for variety. He suspected he might have to find out the hard way. Apparently none of his captors could cook, and the only one paying _any_ attention to the food situation was fixated on junk food. Dino had never thought he’d find himself craving lettuce.

They were about three weeks into their little roadtrip when the van broke down. Admittedly it wasn’t the first time. Princess Persephone, as Mukuro insisted on calling it, was, probably not the most reliable of vehicles. It made alarming noises whenever anyone tried to accelerate, and a different set of alarming noises whenever someone hit the brakes. It took a minimum of three tries to get it to start in the morning, and the engine cut out on a daily basis. But this time was different, this time they couldn’t get it to start again, not even with a jolt of Sun Flames to activate it, from Hayato of the almost limitless Flame combinations. Seriously, that made five Flames, that was just _excessive._

Ken had been sent to find a payphone and call for a mechanic while the rest of them sat by the roadside and relied on Mukuro’s Mist Flames to keep from drawing attention. It didn’t take long for Mukuro to get bored and since his preferred method of entertainment was tormenting Dino, it wasn’t exactly a comfortable wait. Eventually Hayato took pity, or maybe just got bored of his shrieking, because he sent Mukuro and Chikusa into town to gather supplies and information. Dino mentally translated that as sending them to find some way to entertain themselves, because it wasn’t like they actually needed supplies, they still had at least a week’s worth of biscuits, and a full can of petrol.

Ken arrived back first, with the news that the mechanic wouldn’t be there until the next day. There had been much swearing from Hayato. Dino really didn’t see why he was so annoyed. It wasn’t like they were going in the right direction anyway, one days delay here or there wouldn’t make much difference when they kept getting lost.

Mukuro and Chikusa arrived back soon after, and when he saw what they’d brought, Hayato had started swearing again. Dino was actually quite impressed. That was a lot of paint for two small boys to carry back all that way.

The art project quickly became a group effort, with Mukuro directing while Chikusa handled the fiddly bits around the windows, and Ken somehow managed to get more paint on himself than the Princess. Hayato pretended not to be involved, but Dino noticed the way he subtly repositioned the paint pots to discourage some of the more horrific colour combinations. Dino soon found himself co-opted as a general dogsbody, in charge of cleaning the brushes, and mixing the paints, and running to get more water whenever it was required. The end result was a multi-coloured psychedelic monstrosity that was probably capable of hypnotising the weak-minded given the right lighting. Dino refused to acknowledge the warm feeling of achievement that bubbled up in his chest, knowing that he’d helped, that he’d been useful. They were his kidnappers, just because they made him feel wanted, and marginally competent didn’t mean they were his friends. Even if they did invite him to join in their art projects. He wondered if this was what Stockholm syndrome felt like.

Against all logic and reason, Princess Persephone actually drew _less_ attention after her makeover. Hayato had just muttered darkly about SEP fields when he realised that, and refused to talk further on the subject. The mechanic had managed to get her moving again, and even straightened out some of the ongoing issues, but, he’d looked sceptical when Chikusa mentioned they were driving to Japan in it. Dino could just see Hayato and Mukuro considering whether it was worth kidnapping the man to keep her running smoothly. In the end the complicated risk benefit analysis they’d been running must have come up negative, because the man was allowed to go on his way unmolested. Lucky bastard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (note, if you get kidnapped, Dino is not a good role model)  
> And yes baby Dino is in fact a spice girls fan, because the thought amuses me, and it flowed naturally from his mental nicknames. At some point he will accidentally call Hayato Scary Spice to his face.  
> Next chapter. Spanner arrives to save the day. Or at least the Princess.


	4. He claims he's a Scientist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Princess Persephone needs a mechanic, Spanner has always wanted to visit Japan, and there may be language issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanner arrives, the Van gets an upgrade.

Mukuro was worried. Darling Princess Persephone was sick, she needed a mechanic. Their fearless leader had started by saying he was being melodramatic, but when black smoke started pouring out of the engine he had been forced to concede that Mukuro might have had a point. Really they should have kidnapped that mechanic back in Switzerland or wherever it was that they’d first broken down, he couldn’t really remember. It had gotten fairly tricky to keep track of where they were on any given day, since it seemed that their fearless leader didn’t actually know how to read a map. (Mukuro didn’t either, to be honest, but there was no-way he was going to admit that in front of the minions and the hostage.)

He knew where they were right now though. He could tell because there was a sign. It said welcome to Paris. In multiple languages even, which was useful because he only really spoke Italian and Japanese. The Italian had been useful when they set out, and the Japanese should be useful if and when they eventually reached their destination, but the in between was proving to be a bit of a challenge. He really didn’t like relying on their fearless leader as translator. Maybe there was a way to _acquire_ languages from native speakers by invading their mind with Mist Flames. He set that intriguing thought aside for future investigation. There was after all a more important task to attend to first.

Princess Persephone needed a mechanic, so he and Fearless Leader were out shopping for one. Fearless Leader was there because he actually spoke French and could therefore gather information from the locals (Mukuro wondered idly if there were any languages Leader sama _didn’t_ speak. Current evidence implied not), Mukuro was there so that no-one noticed when they kidnapped someone off the streets. Because he was just useful like that.

Or well, they had been shopping for a mechanic, until they’d managed to get lost. Well no that wasn’t quite true. They knew exactly where _they_ were, they even knew exactly where they’d left the Princess, it was everything _else_ that had somehow gotten misplaced, and of course Fearless Leader sama refused to admit it was all his fault. Eventually they stopped in a café to try and regain their bearings and soothe the frayed Storm-Cloud temper of Leader sama.

The stop turned out to have been a good move, because while Mukuro charmed the waiter into serving Leader san some soothing tea, and himself a delightfully alarming brightly coloured sugary concoction. Leader san seemed to have found something or rather, _someone_ very interesting to stare at across the café. It was a teenager, a little younger than Hostage chan, blond hair and what looked like a disembowelled robot on the table in front of him being either repaired or tortured, Mukuro couldn’t really tell from his current vantage point. Maybe Leader san thought he’d be a god mechanic for the Princess.

“Do you want to kidnap him?” Mukuro asked curiously. Leader kun grinned a delightfully vicious grin.

“If I’m right, we won’t have to. He’ll come with us of his own accord.” Mukuro raised one eyebrow. What on earth was Leader kun seeing that he wasn’t. Leader kun just smirked as he walked over to the potential mechanic’s table.

“We’re going on a roadtrip to Japan and we need a mechanic. You can do whatever you like to the van as long as it keeps running.” He said in Japanese, and wow, Leader chan had a tendency to be blunt but that was just a whole new level. It was at least a slightly more informative than the sales pitch he’d given Mukuro, maybe Leader chan was growing as a person? Probably not though.

Apparently Mechanic kun didn’t care about the delivery. Mukuro blinked at the boy’s enthusiasm he was practically bouncing as Hayato explained the offer. Hostage chan hadn’t been nearly this excited at being recruited. Maybe it was a French thing.

…

Apparently it wasn’t a French thing, because as it turned out, the mechanic wasn’t French at all, he was English. He did speak Japanese though. Well sort of. A bit. Enough to mostly understand what Leader chan wanted. His French was by all available evidence even worse than his Japanese, but luckily for them it turned out Leader chan also spoke English fluently, and after a frantically babbled conversation in that language they had a new Mechanic. Apparently Mechanic chan had always wanted to go to Japan, and was fed up with the authorities interfering with his building giant death robots, so this was actually a golden opportunity to him. Excellent. Mission accomplished. Princess Persephone could be healed. Now they just had to get him back to her.

Correction, now they just had to brainwash the teacher that was meant to be supervising Mechanic chan’s school trip, forge documents to convince his parents he’d been offered a place in a French science camp, retrieve Mechanic chan’s supplies from the customs impound they’d been languishing in since he’d crossed the border, and _then_ find the Princess. Mukuro still reckoned it would have been simpler to kidnap him.

…

He was a good mechanic though. Mukuro would say this for Fearless Leader chan, he knew how to spot talent, in that creepy and totally impossible way of his. Even Hostage chan was more useful than he first appeared, and there had been absolutely no reason for anyone to have predicted that, but somehow Leader chan had. It was disturbing. Mukuro could respect that.

He could also respect the results and Mechanic chan, who claimed his name was Spanner (they all politely pretended to believe him), was more than just useful. He was _brilliant._ In an hour he had the Princess back up and running better than she ever had before. By the next day there was a glowing green heads up display and what looked like a voice activation system, and Mechanic chan promised this was just the start. Eventually, he said, he hoped to turn the Princess into a fully weaponised, amphibious, shape changing death machine with flight capabilities, a working AI, and the most amazing stereo system known to man. Mukuro couldn’t wait to see it. Even if convincing Swiss border control to ignore the rear mounted machine guns _had_ been a little more of a challenge than their usual routine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've decided Spanner and Dino do have a shared language. It's Klingon. Mukuro will soon figure out how to steal languages from people's brains. Because language issues are only funny for two or three chapters before they become irritating.   
> And Spanner is not great at directions, but he does know how to use a compass so they are at least heading East now, which is an improvement. But there will still be many wrong turns.  
> They will at some point end up in more than one war zone.  
> And yes the Princess will eventually end up sentient.


	5. An offer you can't refuse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Spanner accepts a shady job offer and Dino makes a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanner is having a very good day. He wants to share his enthusiasm with Dino.

Spanner, honestly had not had high expectations for the Paris trip. The school had promised a week of cultural experiences, museums, and high art, with some time set aside for shopping. All the girls in his class had been delighted, but Spanner was definitely not sold on the idea.

Unfortunately he was still technically a minor. Spanner didn’t _have_ to be sold on it, his parents did, and after that last incident with the semi-sentient evil washing machine, the military grade explosives, and the men in black suits that came round to tell his parents to make him cease ad desist, they decided that some forcible exposure to art and history from a time _before_ complex machinery might be a good influence. So he’d been packed off all unwilling on a schoolbus full of squealing girls and that was that.

The first few days had more or less lived down to his expectations, lots of old oil paintings, lots of frilly architecture, and more shoe shops than Spanner had ever wanted to enter in his life, not to mention the fact that they’d confiscated most of his things at the border, so he couldn’t even make his own entertainment. What kind of restrictive authoritarian state put high grade lasers, and radioactive materials on the restricted items lit anyway? It was just unfair.

The temporary exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci had been interesting though. It had given him all _sorts_ of ideas. It was just a shame the teachers had to drag him away because the rest of the class wanted to see more shoe shops. Sometimes Spanner really did wonder about his classmates.

Then, on the fourth day, when he’d finally managed to sneak away from the main group and take refuge in a nearby café, _everything_ changed. He’d been modifying a small robot he’d managed to get through customs disguised as a toy to melt its way through plate steel with acid. Just for theoretical purposes of course. It wasn’t exactly an advanced project, just something to fiddle with really, so it didn’t take long for him to become aware he was being watched.

Two kids, maybe seven or eight, but the razor sharp intelligence in the white haired one’s eyes, and the fractured look of the other’s smile, kept Spanner from dismissing them. And he was right not to do so, because smooth and casual as a cat the white haired one had got up and walked over to his table, and proceeded to deliver the recruitment pitch that would change Spanner’s life.

He’d had to put all his painstakingly self-taught Japanese to the test to get the gist of what was being asked of him, but it was definitely worth it. They were going to Japan, they wanted a mechanic go with them to keep their car running, they didn’t care about his methods. He’d always wanted to go to Japan, and free rein with any kind of technology was a pleasure he’d been denied since the school fete had been disrupted by a minor zombie vs robots apocalyptic throwdown. (He’d _told_ Maxie robots would win.)

Well when opportunity knocked, only a fool turned it away.

As it turned out his new boss, who told him his name was Hayato and he was a hitman, actually spoke English, which made the contract negotiations easier. The terms were simple, he kept the car running no questions asked, there would be no actual payment, but any research materials they could practically acquire on the way would be provided, and they’d set up a solid cover for him to disappear from the boredom of everyday life without any panic.

He told them to call him Spanner, because if he was old enough to make major life decisions he was old enough to choose his own bloody name. If he wanted to be Spanner, not that stupid ordinary name his parents insisted on calling him by. Then he would be Spanner. His new employers certainly didn’t seem to care either way.

He wasn’t sure how it worked exactly, but the Boss’s assistant had talked to his teacher, and then his eyes had glowed purple, and by the time he was finished she’d absolutely believed he’d been offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to study at an intensive French science camp for a year. She’d also been given letters for his parents that would, apparently keep them from questioning the story.

Then they’d all broken into a warehouse owned by the French government to get his stuff back. It was an _experience,_ it turned out his new employers had _superpowers,_ he couldn’t wait to get a chance to figure out how they worked. The Boss had used an ominour red glow to dissolve the lock, after the assistant had glowed purple all over and made them all invisible. When they got close enough to the guards the Boss’s eyes had glowed an unnatural blue and they’d all dropped like stones, and then once they had located his stuff, the assistant, Mukuro, had manifested uncanny indigo flames all across his arms and shoulders before ripping a hole in reality and using it to teleport them all to the van.

He had looked a bit winded after that, obviously ripping holes in spacetime was a tiring process. Spanner was itching to take notes, but beyond that he actually felt a little touched that they’d go to such lengths to help him get his things back. It was sweet.

The van was bright, like an art shop had taken a _lot_ of LSD and then had an ill-advised threesome with a circus and a fireworks display. He loved it. It was the perfect platform to try out all of his most outrageous designs, and with Mukuro’s mysterious and fascinating purple glow, he would never have to worry about the authorities interfering again. Judging by the way he was crooning at it and stroking the steering wheel he would use every resource at his disposal to protect it, and by extension, Spanner’s work.

It didn’t take long for him to get the engine running and then they were headed out of town, plenty of time for upgrades once they were clear of Paris apparently. The looks of approval from his new travelling companions boded well for their trip.

He looked over his new travelling companions. There were six of them in total. Aside from himself and the two he’d already met, there was the driver, who appeared to only speak Italian, the one in the hat, who was asleep, and the teenager huddled in the back. Despite the fact that he was the oldest out of all of them, the teenager definitely didn’t look like he was in charge, at all, that looked like it was Hayato’s job from the orders he kept snapping out in Italian.

Spanner was curious about the teenager actually. He didn’t seem to serve any immediate purpose, unlike the others who were all either making preparations for their departure, or sleeping, presumably in preparation for taking a night shift. He was just sitting in the back of the truck, looking vaguely miserable. Spanner settled himself down beside him and tried to cheer him up, with limited success. It was hard to explain to the boy how lucky the two of them were to be on this exciting trip when their shared vocabulary boiled down to being able to say “hello”, “goodbye”, and “Where are the bathrooms” in French, and count to ten in Japanese. They had at least managed to use the Tarzan and Jane method to exchange names, and Dino seemed to appreciate the effort, but communication had hit a brick wall really.

At least until Spanner had lost his temper and started swearing in Klingon. It had been a surprise when Dino’s eyes had lit up in recognition and started babbling back in the same language. It was a breakthrough. There were still limits on their conversational topics of course, but it was interesting, how relevant so much of their Klingon vocabularies was to their day to day life.

This was definitely the best day of Spanner’s life, he was going on an adventure, to a country he’d always wanted to visit, with no-one to stop him running his experiments, any research materials he desired, and an exciting new superpower phenomenon to study, and he had just made a new _friend._ It was like all his dreams were coming true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am determining their route to Japan by using a map and rolling a set of dice to decide which land border they end up crossing next. So, they're now in Switzerland and will soon be heading into Austria.


	6. Lets bomb Switzerland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the kids happen to Switzerland, and shopping trips go very very wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dino feels a certain amount of sympathy with Switzerland. They have, he feels, quite a lot in common.

Switzerland, Dino suspected, had not deserved this. Metaphorically speaking, it had just been wandering along, minding its own business, trying not to make a fuss, when suddenly out of nowhere a bunch of pre-teen psychopaths had violently assaulted it and turned its world to chaos for no good reason. Truth be told Dino felt a certain amount of kinship with Switzerland.

It had started with the border control of course. It wasn’t even close to the first time Dino had seen Creepy Spice _deal_ with the border control, but familiarity didn’t make the glazed over looks in their eyes as they waved the Princess through, any less… well creepy. The fact that the Princess had been getting steadily less customs friendly ever since they left Paris, really only served to make things more disturbing. Knowing, intellectually, that a strong enough Mist could fool the authorities into ignoring heavy weaponry in full view was one thing. Actually watching them wave through a pair of surface to air missiles mounted on the back of a psychedelically painted van driven by an eight year old, that was something else entirely.

The main impression Dino had got of Switzerland, after they’d crossed the border, was of a very clean, tidy, orderly sort of country. Everything was just very… nice, and _polite._ At least, it was until their rag tag, road trip posse rocked up in their illegally modified, disturbingly decorated van. After, well… Dino wasn’t sure the country would ever recover. He knew _he_ wouldn’t.

It had started out lowkey enough, a little mindfuckery from Creepy Spice here, a little random violence from Loud Spice there, with the occasional blast of deeply disturbing experimental Scandinavian ultra death-metal music when it was Quiet Spice’s turn to pick the radio station (which just went to show it really was always the quiet ones). Things had been fine, for a given value of fine. Then Scary Spice had decided to go shopping and things had pretty much gone downhill from there.

The rest of the gang had decided to tag along, mostly because they’d found Switzerland incredibly boring so far, and since everyone was going that meant there was no-one left to watch Dino, which meant he’d had to go as well. Admittedly more out of some twisted and arcane ideas about professional behaviour than any real concern he’d try to escape. They were all disturbingly good at reading people for a bunch of feral lunatic preteens, and Dino just _knew_ they could tell they had him far too intimidated to run.

Anyway truthfully Dino suspected that if there ever had been a moment to make a run for it, it had already passed him by. If he ran now, even if his current captors didn’t succeed in tracking him down and making him sorry for trying, then he’d be on his own on the streets of Switzerland, hundreds of miles from home and fair game for anyone out to kidnap a baby Sky, for ransom, or… other reasons. At least with Scary Spice and his merry band of outlaws, he was being treated reasonably well, and had Spanner to talk to about the sci fi shows no-one at home had been interested in watching. It really wasn’t so bad, once you got used to the constant, low key sense of terror, and the chaos was actually kind of relaxing once you learned to accept that order and reason were dead and it was best to just go with it.

It was possible he might have just a touch of Stockholm syndrome. Actually, wasn’t Stockholm in Switzerland somewhere? If so then that was disturbingly fitting for the way his life had been going, utter chaos, tempered with unsettling coincidences.

But, Stockholm syndrome or no, he’d had a sinking feeling of dread ever since Hayato had announced the shopping trip. He really didn’t want to go. He couldn’t tell if it was Sky intuition, or just logical extrapolation from past experience, but he just knew it was going to end badly.

He was right. Dino was starting to really hate being right.

Things had started to go wrong when Spanner got carried away in the computer shop, and managed to create a small army of mini robots that were soon crawling all over the shopping centre. Or maybe it was when Ken had decided to liberate the petshop with Chikusa’s help, adding a menagerie of small animals to the issue, the two events had happened more or less concurrently so it was hard to pin down who exactly was to blame for it all. It had definitely escalated when Mukuro had added the illusory fairies and pixies, mainly for shits and giggles as far as Dino could work out. Some of them were naked. That was about the point where the civilians had started to panic, security had been called, and Hayato, whose temper had been growing steadly shorter as the shopping trip progressed, had decided to deal with the problem using improvised high explosives he put together from ingredients he found in the chemists. There had been fire, mayhem, lots of screaming. Then Dino may have panicked just slightly and accidentally flooded the general area with Sky flames to try and calm things down.

It had worked, kind of. The civilians had been knocked out at least, but the powerful pulse of Sky flames had predictably attracted the attention of the local criminal cartels. That could have been bad. That was the sort of scenario baby Skies were taught to have nightmares about. “don’t run away from your guards or the enemy organisations will come for you”. Of course, most baby Skies weren’t hanging around with the younger and more psychotic siblings of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, plus what Dino suspected was a future bond villain.

The results had been depressingly predictable. For Dino at least, the Swiss had looked pretty surprised. Hayato had reacted with more explosives, the others had piled in with their various chosen weapons, while Spanner crouched behind an upturned table with Dino and piloted an improvised drone at their opponents. There had been screaming, and bleeding, and chaos, and no small amount of pyrotechnics, and three hours later they were speeding away from a smoking hole in the ground where the shopping centre used to be, and pretending they knew nothing about any small scale mafia wars that might have taken place in the area.

Dino really really hoped it would be a while before they had to go shopping again.

On the bright side, they had at least managed to gather some supplies, and it hadn’t even eaten into their budget. Loud Spice claimed that the laws of plunder meant they didn’t have to pay for them, and no-one had really cared enough to argue. So, free stuff. And it looked like Spanner had managed to go Flame active which was nice for him, and meant he’d probably be spending less time pestering the rest of them for experimental samples.

On the minus side, well they kind of did blow up Switzerland. At least a small part of it, although with the destabilising effect of the power vacuum they’d left in the local criminal underworld there might be a chain reaction. Scary Spice said that it was all fine though. “No one likes Switzerland anyway” he said, “It serves them right for being a tax haven” he said, “and for the yodelling.” Dino tried not to wonder if Scary Spice had similar justifications ready for when he blew Dino up. Just in case, he made a mental note to avoid yodelling, and shady banking practices for the foreseeable future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Stockholm is not actually in Switzerland, and no, Dino did not pay very much attention in geography lessons.  
> Please note, no tax havens or dens of soulless corporate consumerism were harmed in the making of this fic. The reader is not in any way to take this statement as a challenge or thinly veiled suggestion. This is fiction, not wish fulfilment. The author is in no way shape or form advocating any harm to Switzerland, shopping centres, or other pillars of the global corporate conspiracy. The shadowy financial cartel is our friend readers, do not lash out when all it seeks is to better us all. The lizard overlords have our best interests at heart.  
> ....  
> ...  
> ..  
> .  
> The author of this fic has been detained for questioning by the benevolent overmind that maintains civilisation, they will be reprogrammed and returned to you shortly with no memory of this brief lapse.  
> ...  
> Sorry readers, for the deluded ramblings earlier in this authors note. There is NO, repeat, NO, shadowy lizard lord conspiracy controlling global capitalism. We are all completely in control of our own destinies. Anyone who claims otherwise should be reported to your friendly neighbourhood reprogramming clinic, to help free them from their dangerous paranoid delusions about the unfortunate skin condition many prominent members of our society suffer from.


	7. Your mission, should you choose to accept it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Cavallone have a problem, they hire Reborn to solve it for them. He is almost impressed by their incompetence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After several weeks the Cavallone finally decide to call in outside help.

Reborn ruthlessly suppressed any sign of the gleeful vindication he was feeling. He doubted the Cavallone would appreciate it. It was just so satisfying though, being proved right. He _knew_ there was something shifty going on with the Cavallone. Colonello owed him fifty euros, a favour, and a humiliating forfeit, he’d bet that Reborn was just being paranoid. He’d told that idiot time and time again, there was no such thing as paranoia in their line of work.

Anyway, yet again, the universe had proved Reborn right, when the Cavallone had summoned him under a truly impressive amount of secrecy and panic. It turned out the Cavallone had indeed been hiding internal chaos, behind their recent shifty behaviour. Although _how_ they’d managed to _lose_ a baby Sky, the heir of their famiglia no less made him despair at the competence of today’s Mafioso. Reborn might have found it depressing if he wasn’t too busy being gleeful and self-satisfied. Still that was no reason to let the mooks off the hook.

“So to be clear. You idiots managed not only to let your heir get kidnapped but you have no idea who took him, where they took him, or even _why_ they took him. Is there anything you _do_ know, or shall I just shoot you now for the sake of the gene pool.”

It was really quite gratifying the way the mooks broke out into a cold sweat. In fact, had that first one just… yep, he wet himself. Reborn grinned to himself, definitely still got it. Mook number two looked like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if it was worth the risk, so Reborn glared at him until he folded and spilled the beans.

“Umm. Mr Reborn, sir, Antonio in surveillance said he saw the boss’s kid being carried away by Santa’s elves.” Reborn’s flat look must have spoken volumes, because Mook three hurried to shut Mook two up.

“Don’t waste Mister Reborn’s time with that nonsense idiot. Everyone knows what kind of recreational substances Antonio plays around with on the night shift when he thinks he won’t get caught.” He whispered furiously, before turning to Reborn. “I’m so sorry about that sir. Diego tends to listen to far too much gossip.”

Reborn chose to ignore Mook three in favour of keeping his glare fixed on Mook two. At least Mook two was offering a suggestion, unlike the others who were just standing there looking terrified. It might be ridiculous, but it was the only actual suggestion any of them had offered, and honestly, Reborn _had_ seen weirder things than elves over the years. Certainly it was worth seeing if there was any truth to be extracted from the story.

“Where can I find this Antonio.” It took approximately ten seconds for Mook two to crumble and sell out his friend. Really, what was the mafia coming to? Reborn found himself sorely tempted to book them all into an advanced training session with Lal. There might be a certain amount of attrition, but at least the survivors would make him less embarrassed to call himself a Mafioso.

Now, to track down Antonio of the exciting chemically based hobbies.

…

Well, Antonio was almost certainly a latent Mist. He’d never seen that particular brand of blithe unconcern for such trivial things as self-preservation and the laws of reality in any other Flame type. He was absolutely relaxed in Reborn’s presence, which was novel, if irritating. He wasn’t allowed to actually physically damage any of Don Cavallone’s men, and without the option of intimidating his witness into talking, it was proving to be a challenge trying to get the information he needed.

“So how did you _know_ they were Santa’s elves? Did they announce themselves?”

“Well no, not in so many words.” Antonio admitted.

“So you don’t actually know the… elves, were affiliated with Santa. Are you sure they were even elves in fact”

“Well no, not for absolute certain. But they were definitely way too short to be adult humans, and besides…” He let his voice drop to a stage whisper. “When I asked what they were doing with Chibi Boss the one with the purple hair said that this was what happened when you got on the naughty list. Then I fell asleep and when I woke up everyone was running around panicking so I went back to my office.” Reborn counted slowly back from ten. He didn’t hate Mists, he really didn’t. Actually he rather liked them, they provided excellent opportunities for chaos. It was just that occasionally, just occasionally he got the sudden and irresistible urge to strangle one of them. It would pass, he just needed some perspective.

“And nothing about that struck you as even a little strange or suspicious.” Antonio appeared to consider for a moment.

“I mean, I did think it was a little bit odd for Chibi Boss to be on the naughty list. He always seemed like a sweet enough kid to me. Not like those little horrors the Vongola are raising.” He shuddered. “Now there’s a bunch of kids that deserve to be taken away in a sack by angry Santa.”

At this point Reborn gave up on rationality, might as well just work within the framework provided. Once a Mist got an idea in their head it was rarely worth the effort of trying to shift it instead of just working around it, and this Mist clearly believed in Santa.

“Did they say anything about where they might be headed next?”

“Well the North Pole presumably. Unless they had other stops to make first. But I don’t know. They didn’t say anything…. Although, well actually the purple elf did say the van was parked outside. I’m not sure if the sled’s in the garage or Santa’s upgraded, but the purple one did mention a van. If that helps.” Reborn tilted his hat with a dark smile.

“Oh, I think it’s enough to be getting on with. Thank you for all your help.”

“Any time Mr Arcobaleno. Try to avoid killing Santa if you can. My little niece will be heartbroken if he doesn’t bring her that sniper rifle for Christmas this year.”

“I’ll do my best. If I can’t avoid it, then take this card to Lal Mirch and she’ll give the kid a crash course to make up for it.” After all, who was Reborn to stand in the way of the younger generation’s interest in fun and educational weaponry? Maybe if they were given the support early enough they might turn out less useless than the current crop of Mafioso. It was something to consider, maybe he should go into teaching.

…

Well, it looked like Antonio’s tip had paid off. There had been a van photographed outside the Cavallone mansion on the night in question. And they said police surveillance wasn’t good for anything.

Closer examination of the footage showed Reborn what he’d already half suspected. The kidnappers had been kids, not elves. Actual kids, which surprised Reborn who had been half expecting Skull and some mindless accomplice. It would have been out of character for the lackey, but an arcobaleno managing to break through layers of Cavallone security and steal the heir without a trace was far more logical than actual kids succeeding at the job. But all the evidence was saying actual kids, maybe eight or nine years old, and Reborn knew better than to underestimate them.

There were at least three, two on the job, one to drive the getaway van, and the two that had broken in were definitely Flame active. The purple one was probably a Mist, and considering a number of the Cavallone men had been knocked out by Rain flames that made his companion most likely a Rain. An unusual partnership, but an effective one, especially if the getaway driver was a Sun or Lightning.

Young, Flame active, and very competent. Reborn grinned in predatory anticipation. This should be an interesting chase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, Reborn is after the gang. Unfortunately for Reborn, they have several weeks headstart. By the time he catches up with them they may well hae got the teleporter working.


	8. That went well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the gang happen to Austria, crime is committed in Germany, and Liechtenstien may or may not have been invaded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hayato is unbearably smug about how well his plans are going, there is some Sky and Element chemistry going on between Dino and Spanner, and no-one is prepared to ask Spanner what he wants those nuclear materials for.

Overall, Hayato decided, things were going pretty well. True, they were still in Europe, when he’d really hoped to be in Japan with his Sky by this point, but aside from the unfortunate time lag, not much had gone wrong with Hayato’s mad, desparate plan. It just went to show, planning things on the fly really did work out sometimes. He was back in time, with his Sky alive, he had Dino to unseal his Sky as soon as they got to him, he’d managed, somehow to ensure Mukuro was about fifty percent less fucked up than he had been the first time ‘round, which was a nice bonus, _and_ he had a van with enough firepower to level a small city.

Spanner had definitely been a good hiring decision. It had been pure luck, spotting him in that café in France, and there was a part of Hayato that couldn’t help but take it as proof that the universe _wanted_ his quest to succeed. After all, what were the odds of something like that happening purely by accident?

No, it was clearly fate. There _was_ a higher power, and that higher power _wanted_ them to have rear mounted heavy artillery on the back of their van. There had even been mention made of the possibility of a ray gun.

Spanner was also turning out to be pretty good at keeping Dino calm, which, well, it was useful. Hayato really hadn’t expected the young Cavallone boss-to-be, to be quite so… highly strung. Clearly years under Reborn’s thumb had given Dino’s older self a chaos tolerance that his younger self lacked.

Really, there was no reason for him to be _that_ terrified of the rest of them. It wasn’t like they were planning to cause him any _permanent_ damage. Well, not physical damage anyway, with Mukuro along psychological damage was an unavoidable risk they all ran. Still, he seemed to like Spanner, which had gone a long way towards reducing the _squeaking_. They spent a lot of time these days muttering to each other in Klingon, and Klingon was not a squeaky language.

Maybe they would bond. They’d certainly be cute together, and it would be nice for Spanner to have a chance at a Sky of his own. After all, he’d built Hayato missiles, he _deserved_ something nice. And Dino probably did as well, considering how much stress they’d put him under recently. Yes it would be good if they bonded, it’d make them both a bit happier and more settled, and stronger of course which was always handy. It would also have the added bonus of binding Dino tighter to their little group, which would be convenient. It was so nice when doing the right thing also meant doing the practical thing, like being rewarded for good behaviour by the universe.

Yes, things were, on the whole going pretty well.

They were also now definitely heading in the right direction. As long as they kept heading towards the sunrise they’d be _fine._ Hayato still wasn’t sure _how_ they’d ended up in France, but since the detour had netted them a useful mad scientist mechanic, he felt no need to cast stones (even if it was blatantly Ken’s poor map reading skills that were to blame.) But it was fine, they were headed in the right direction now.

Judging by the road signs they’d passed through Switzerland into Austria already. He _thought_ they might have gone through Liechtenstien along the way, but it was hard to tell. Still what else could be expected from a country that once got invaded by accident?

Austria had been decent enough. Much better than Switzerland at least. There _had_ been an unfortunate incident where they’d managed to get caught up in the Bad Ratten third annual local home brew lager, skeleton bob, and folk music festival in the mountains, but once the fires and the screaming had died down that had turned out fine. It wasn’t like they’d even done very much. That whole village had been a blast radius waiting to happen. The kind of people who thought the unholy combination of alcohol, extreme sports, and open mic yodelling competitions was a good idea should really be considered responsible for their own accidental civic demolitions.

Admittedly Ken had won the skeleton bob race and with it a years supply of free sausages, which hadn’t exactly made them all popular with the other hopefuls. And Mukuro’s unexpected gift for yodelling _had_ put the local favourite into second place, much to the bookies displeasure. And to tell the truth letting Dino and Spanner loose on the local pubs with functional fake ids _may_ have been a slight miscalculation. Hayato had _seen_ older Dino in bar fights, just because chibi Dino was a wimp didn’t mean he should have let his guard down. But overall they couldn’t be held responsible for what happened. It wasn’t like _they_ were the ones that brought the flaming torches. Just because some of Hayato’s supplies combusted slightly on contact with said torches, didn’t make the property damage his fault.

Anyway they got away clean, and the locals were too hungover to pursue, so it wasn’t like there was any _real_ trouble, and the sausages did make a nice change from the steady diet of crisps and mars bars they’d been running off up to that point. (Spanner had built a fridge out of two microwaves, a hairdryer, and the air conditioning unit from someone else’s car, in order to store Ken’s winnings. Hayato hadn’t checked, but he suspected it might be bigger on the inside.)

In any case they’d moved on into Germany, and Spanner had taken the opportunity to present them with a wishlist, so they’d had to make a pitstop in order to commit some crime. Juudaime would understand. It was after all, for the greater good.

They managed to get a lot of the parts at a local car factory. Easy enough, walk in, walk out, they probably could have done it even without Mist illusions to cover them. But there were also some more… exotic materials on the list. They’d managed to get the night vision equipment, and advanced circuitry from a considerably more secure factory that supplied the military, but the depleted uranium, that they’d needed to raid a nuclear power plant for.

That was tricky. Even with Mist flames, there were enough automated security measures to cause serious problems. It had required actual planning.

In the end they’d gone with the tried and true method of knocking out the people who were _supposed_ to take the stuff away for safe disposal, replacing them, and then using Mist Flame to convince everyone that nothing out of the ordinary had happened. After all, the weakest point of any security system was in transferring things from point A to point B.

It had of course worked like a charm. They’d stolen enough nuclear material to have half the world’s governments in a panic, and Hayato doubted they’d even notice it was gone. He was a _genius._ He wondered if maybe he should ask Spanner what he actually wanted it for, but, well, he was sure Spanner would tell him when it became relevant. Until then there were far more important things to figure out. Like which way up the map went, and whether they should go right or left at the next turning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas everyone. Have an update.  
> I'm pretty sure Belphegor happens next chapter, so that should be fun.  
> Dino is a very angry drunk, he gets into bar fights, and wreaks havoc, Spanner is a shameless enabler. They are both very proud of having successfully started a bar fight with a string of klingon insults, despite the fact they were the only people in the room who knew klingon.


End file.
